Hard vs. Soft Leadership Skills

The truth behind “soft” & “hard” skills leaders need
to understand to help their teams grow:

We got it wrong when we started referring to skills as hard & soft.

🪨 Hard skills as we know them – technical skills like computer programming, writing, machinery.

☁️ Soft skills as we know them – interpersonal skills like empathy, communication, patience.

Ask anyone you know – Which is harder: writing a proposal or reading a room?

Most will answer the latter.

It’s because the skills we call “soft” are actually hard. 🥥

They’re mostly hard to:
→ Understand
→ Develop
→ Explain & teach
→ Display (because we have to overcome the associated limiting beliefs)

This is why when someone doesn’t have one of these skills, we often dismiss them.

We think they’re a lost cause because we don’t want to put in the hard investment of helping them develop.

We move onto another candidate or employee that already has it.

The skills we call “hard” are actually soft. 🍎

They’re mostly easier to:
→ Grasp
→ Break down for consumption
→ Replicate
→ And lose

Where do we go from here?
How do we get better?

Let’s stop treating the “soft skills” as something we need to teach in a “soft way” but instead break them down.

We can use our more tangible skills of problem solving, root cause analysis, & training to break down the intangible skills we want in leaders like EQ.

They can all be broken down to their roots & taught. 🧱

Critical thinking is at its core just being curious & questioning everything.

That’s how you build your objectivity & data collection muscles.

And the basis for strategy creation – looking at the pieces on the table & finding the connections between everything.

Use this cheat sheet to start changing the narrative today & identify the must-have tangible & intangible leadership skills.


“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
– Eckhart Tolle